<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>A Good Man by TimesBeingWhatTheyAre</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23659909">A Good Man</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre/pseuds/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre'>TimesBeingWhatTheyAre</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Basically, Cuddle Pile, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e07 Amy's Choice, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, h/c, this was an intense episode and deserves more attention, trigger-warning, tw</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:28:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,484</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23659909</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre/pseuds/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well- you said the Dream Lord was you, yeah?”<br/>“I did say that; that sounds a lot like a thing I would say,”<br/>“Right then, so does that mean that- you think anything he said was true? You don’t, do you?” </p><p>“Ah. That kind of a serious talk,” </p><p>Post-ep 'Amy's Choice', Amy realises the Doctor never answered her question.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor &amp; Amy Pond &amp; Rory Williams, The Doctor &amp; Amy Pond (Doctor Who), The Doctor &amp; Rory Williams (Doctor Who)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>127</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Good Man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, on a quarantine rewatch of Eleven, and I forget just how juicy this episode really is. I always think there's not enough doctor!whumpage, so I created some.</p><p>And boy, this episode has a lot to draw on. I've also always been struck by the line 'so what do you do around here to stave off the, you know, self harm?' because it's quite a dark joke that kinda comes out of nowhere and you're like ??? Who put that line there???</p><p>So this was a little inspired by that as well. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had taken Amy almost an embarrassingly long time to realise that the doctor had never answered her question. She had been swept up in the joy of finding Rory alive, in the sheer relief that her fiancé wasn’t dead, and she had forgotten all about him.</p><p>Her raggedy doctor.</p><p>She was lying awake in her bed, Rory asleep next to her (they’d gone into the bedroom next door because the doctor had given her a bunk bed), and thinking back on the events of the day. </p><p>And she’d realised.</p><p>“But the things he said about you- you don’t think that they’re true?” she had asked.</p><p>She had often wished the doctor would stop lying to her, and for some reason, he’d granted her that wish just this once, and Amy could have kicked herself for not noticing sooner.</p><p>His expressive brown eyes had instead looked at her searchingly, penetrating deep into her soul just like they always did, and she’d tried her best to show that she was strong enough to bear the weight of his response.</p><p>But he hadn’t given her an answer.</p><p>No, he just whirled away; a whirlwind of joy and sound and laughter, and twirled her straight into the reliable arms of Rory, and Amy had willingly poured herself into the deflection, and never even asked for an answer.</p><p>“Rory,” she whispered, fumbling around and tapping Rory’s cheek with one cold finger.</p><p>He grunted and moved away from it.</p><p>Amy rolled her eyes and slipped out of bed, throwing on a dressing gown that hung on the back of the door, and walked outside, into the winding corridors of the TARDIS. Rory wouldn’t even notice that she was gone.</p><p>“Doctor?” she called out, padding down the hallway, and turning into the central control room. He spent most of his free time tinkering around with the TARDIS, and Amy knew that that was where she would find him on any given day.</p><p>“Amy!” The Doctor yelled back happily, popping his head out from a contorted position underneath the main console. </p><p>She looked down at him with confusion, and twisted her head to try and be at the same angle as him.</p><p>“Amy, Amy, Amy, isn’t it your bed-time?” Eleven asked, pulling himself out of his hidey-hole with both hands and an awful lot of effort.</p><p>She eyed him, and made the wise decision to let him get up on his own.</p><p>“Well, yeah, but I wanted to talk to you,” she admitted, and the Doctor finally bounced to his feet, clapping his hands excitedly.</p><p>“Talk? Ooh, I do love a good talk, especially one that includes tea, and some biscuits, although I didn’t really enjoy the talk I had with that poor three legged Janconian in the Drexil galaxy. I’d avoid that fellow if I were you,” the Doctor rambled, and Amy found her head slightly dizzy with the speed that he talked at (and always talked at).</p><p>“What? No, I wanted to have- a serious talk,” Amy crossed her arms with a small frown, and the Doctor looked towards her.</p><p>“I guess I can do serious talks too. Tell me your secrets!” the Time Lord beamed, grabbing Amy’s arm and bouncing over to the edge of the console, then seeming to change his mind and instead, he ran down the steps and dragged her onwards into the corridor.</p><p>“Come along Pond!” he grinned, and she yelped as he dragged her all the way (okay three rooms down) to the room that they had designated the ‘Tea Room’ due to the fact that it contained only a kettle, tea bags and a large, plushy sofa. On occasion, it had been known to supply jammy dodgers, although it wasn’t a certainty in the Tea Room.</p><p>“So. Amelia Pond,” the Doctor said, dragging her surname out like he always did, as the two of them settled down on the large sofa. “Whatever is this ‘Serious Talk’ about?” </p><p>His face was close to hers, and Amy kept her gaze locked with his searching eyes as she struggled for the words to begin with.</p><p>“Well- you said the Dream Lord was you, yeah?” she confirmed, and the Doctor nodded.</p><p>“I did say that; that sounds a lot like a thing I would say,” Eleven said, and Amy nodded.</p><p>“Right then, so does that mean that- you think anything he said was true? You don’t, do you?” Amy asked worriedly, and the Doctor dropped his eyes to their laps as they sat curled towards one another on the cushion.</p><p>“Ah. That kind of a serious talk,” he replied quietly, his face brooding instead of joyous and Amy leant closer to get his attention.</p><p>“I see you not answering my question, Doctor,” she pushed, and he leant back a little bit, the way he did when he was trying to avoid giving answers he didn’t want to give.</p><p>Amy rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the neck, forcing him to stay still and look at her.</p><p>“Doctor. You said- ‘there’s only one person in the universe that hates me as much as you do’- but does that mean- you were talking about yourself?” she asked, trying to look at his eyes as she did so.</p><p>The Doctor didn’t look up, face fallen into quiet, and Amy sighed.</p><p>“I- Doctor, why would you- you’re my hero, you know?” she reassured, and the Doctor suddenly jerked backwards, out of her reach, and stood up, beginning to pace.</p><p>“No, Amy, I shouldn’t be your hero. I am many things, but I am not a good man, and I do not deserve to be called a hero,” he hissed at her, running a distressed hand through his hair, and then looking at his hand and scoffing derisively.</p><p>Amy remembered suddenly, the derisive comments that the Dream Lord had made about the Doctor’s looks. About the Doctor’s hair.</p><p>“You are a hero,” she insisted, standing up too and reaching out a hand.</p><p>He slapped it away angrily, breathing hard as he turned to look at her.</p><p>“I am no hero!” he yelled. “You can’t stand there and judge me when- you don’t know what I’ve done, what I’ve had to do- you’re just- little Amelia Pond. A girl who never grew up,” </p><p>The Doctor was whispering by the end of his sentence, looked dejected in a way he rarely allowed Amy to see, and she swallowed down her indignation at the comments, instead grabbing a tight hold of his shoulder and shaking him.</p><p>“No. I’ve grown up Doctor, and I’ve chosen to be here. I don’t know all of your past, but I do know who you are, and you are a good man,” she told him, and watched as he closed his eyes with a sombre smile.</p><p>“Oh Amy. If only I could believe that,” he breathed out.</p><p>She shrugged.</p><p>“Why can’t you?” Amy asked, and was surprised to see the Doctor open his eyes again, burning bright with conviction and also gleaming with unshed tears.</p><p>“Amy, if you knew what I’d done- you wouldn’t stand here and comfort me. You’d run,” he told her, impossibly gently, and reached out to cup her face in his rough palms. He wiped a careful thumb across the skin under her eyes, as though brushing away a non-existent tear, and then dropped his head again.</p><p>“I wouldn’t,” Amy whispered back, reaching up to hold his hands where they rested on her cheeks, and walking them gently back to the sofas. “Trust me, Doctor. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s be stubborn,”</p><p>The Doctor laughed, the sound a little choked, and rested into her a little more. “Oh, I don’t doubt your stubbornness, Amelia Pond,”</p><p>“Then why can’t you accept that you are a good man?” Amy asked, and felt the Doctor take in a shuddering breath.</p><p>She shuffled forwards on the sofa, and wrapped her arms around him tightly as she waited for a response.</p><p>“The things I’ve done- I’ve killed entire races, Amy. I’ve wiped out entire planets, I’ve lost more people than you will ever meet, and I make people want to risk more for me. I- I make people a danger to themselves, and if I’m not careful, I burn entire worlds down,” the Doctor admitted in a quiet, broken voice, and Amy hugged him close as he trembled.</p><p>“And yet here I am, being selfish and putting your life in risk,”</p><p>Amy scowled down at him. “Excuse me, Raggedy Man, but there was no way I was letting you run off without me,” she told him, and he scoffed quietly.</p><p>“I should have- tried harder. I kill everyone I touch. I’m a monster, Amy, far worse than any I face,” he told her, his face pressed into the warm skin of her neck, and Amy felt her heart break for him.</p><p>“No, Doctor, no, you aren’t a monster. You’re my Doctor, my raggedy man,” she whispered gently, and rocked him with more soothing words as he cried into her arms.</p><p>“You save people, Doctor. You’ve saved so many people. How about you let me be the one to do some saving?” she smiled sorrowfully, and the Doctor looked up at her, his cheeks tearstained and his eyes a puffy red.</p><p>“But you- you’d rather die than stay with me,” he whispered, and Amy realised that he was talking about the events of the day.</p><p>“No, it’s not you Doctor, I promise. I love you, okay? But- Rory-“ Amy tried to explain, and the Doctor tried to smile up at her.</p><p>“It’s okay, Amy, I understand,” Eleven said. “I really do,”</p><p>Amy shook her head. </p><p>“I don’t think you do,” she told him. “I didn’t want to die to get away from you, I just- I love Rory too,” she helplessly tried to explain and felt awful when she looked down and saw that the Doctor had buried his face in her top again. He was clearly trying to hide the wave of tears that had overcome him, and Amy looked up at the ceiling helplessly as she rubbed his back and tried to calm him down.</p><p>“Uh- should I be- you know, worried?” Rory asked from the doorway, staring at his soon-to-be wife and where the Doctor seemed to have his head tightly buried in her chest, limbs intertwined on the large sofa.</p><p>Amy looked up at him, and gestured sharply with a ‘come here, you idiot’ look, and Rory nervously walked over, and perched on the edge of the couch. She rolled her eyes at him, and he shuffled a bit closer, still unsure what exactly was going on.</p><p>“See Doctor, Rory thinks you’re a good man,” Amy encouraged, making dramatic expressions at Rory to make him agree.</p><p>“Yeah…” Rory nodded back with very little conviction, and was shocked when Amy bared her teeth at him and leant forwards, disrupting the doctor a little, and yanked Rory into the little cuddle pile.</p><p>He leant on the Doctor awkwardly, Amy’s arm still holding him fast where he was, but as he felt the Doctor’s body trembling against his own, Rory finally realised what was going on.</p><p>His eyes widened, and he looked up at Amy desperately for help, not having realised that the Time Lord was upset, nor having any idea how to comfort him.</p><p>“Doctor, just because I love Rory doesn’t mean that you aren’t still my best friend, and doesn’t mean that you come as second choice to him,” Amy told the alien, and Rory bit his lip nervously.</p><p>He gave Amy a ‘what-the-fuck-do-I-do’ look, and she gave him a ‘stop-being-an-idiot-look’ and stared intently at the Doctor’s half-crumpled form.</p><p>Rory heard a quiet sniff coming from their friend, and he finally sat up a little and put his arm around the Doctor, taking care not to end up spooning him, but trying to provide proper comfort none-the-less.</p><p>They sat there for a little bit longer, Amy whispering more comfort to the Doctor, and Rory trying his best to comfort a man who he’d thought he was competing with for Amy’s affections only hours earlier. He could see now that the Doctor wasn’t in love with Amy; he just didn’t want her to leave him, and Rory’s sensible nature meant that he would always want Amy in the safest place possible, and that place was hardly ever the TARDIS.</p><p>And Rory had won.</p><p>It didn’t feel much like a victory, he thought, looking down on the Time Lord that he had only recently begun to call friend. It felt more like sadness for the loneliness that the Doctor must face, and would face again.</p><p>When the Doctor finally stopped shaking in their arms, he seemed to be asleep, and Rory wasn’t really sure what the protocol was for a sleeping, emotionally exhausted alien. He wondered if they were all going to sleep there for the night, but it only took a few<br/>
minutes for him to wake up again, and immediately try to get up and leave in embarrassment.</p><p>Amy stood up as soon as he did, and grabbed his arm.</p><p>“You are a good man, my Doctor,” she told him, and Rory watched as he squeezed his eyes shut tight.</p><p>“Amy, please,” he pleaded, and Amy let go of his arm slowly, her gaze holding his with steely promise. He looked her in the eyes for a few moments, long enough for her to nod and wrap him tightly in a hug, and then walk out the door whilst the Doctor stood still, looking a little shell-shocked.</p><p>Rory stood up to follow his fiancé, but as he did, he happened to glance down and notice something marring the Doctor’s arm, where his sleeve had pushed up. </p><p>Rory stopped. The Doctor followed his line of sight, and flinched minutely, fidgeting with his sleeve and then turning slightly away from Rory, as if that would hide him from the man.</p><p>“In the past?” Rory asked sternly, and the Doctor nodded slowly.</p><p>“Trying to be,” he responded quietly, and Rory looked at him and nodded.</p><p>“Good. You find us instead,” he commanded, and walked out of the door quickly, unsure when ‘Amy and the Doctor’ had morphed into ‘Amy, Rory and the Doctor’, but Rory realised that he had no intention of leaving.</p><p>Not the life, not the adventures, not the alien.</p><p>Rory let out a deep breath, and walked off, back towards his and Amy’s stolen room.</p><p>Behind him, the Doctor’s lips shook out into a thin smile, his fingers tracing small scars even as he recalled the warmth of the hug that the Ponds had given him.</p><p>He wasn’t a good man, although it was kind of them to say. He wondered if, perhaps, maybe he could be one though, with their help.</p><p>After all, it didn’t look like they’d be going anywhere anytime soon.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>